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Let's talk talk radio - Why have discussions when you can listen?

I don't know how many other people are into it, but listening to people talk rather than doing the talking is fun and intriguing stuff. As long as what's being said is funny or worth hearing. Podcasts achieve this through the internet but hey, it all goes back to radio.

Locally, in my piece of crap slice of Texas, there's a show that plays in the mornings called The Big Show, with John Boy and Billy. Not the greatest stuff, but sometimes they have decent sketches to play out. They're INTO Nascar and are right-wingers so I don't really care to listen to all of their show.

Probably my biggest turn-on for talk radio though is Howard Stern, even if he's on a subscribed service now. And yeah, I'm subscribed to it as of today (mostly 'cause I found out you can listen through the net, I thought you needed an XM tuner) (it was a long time coming). Been listening to him on and off since I was in gradeschool. And I'm really hard pressed to find anyone who also likes listening to him. Bullshit reasons on why people don't like him, though, are easy to find.

We can't forget there's other people on the airwaves like Rush and Hannity and Glenn Beck (self-appointed messenger of God), and that most of the airwaves are controlled by right-wing interests, but there's gems out there to be found.

I don't know how many other people on the forum bother listening to talk radio, but I figured it's worth a shot to find out. Who do you guys listen to and why? Depending on how this goes I can juice up this OP.

Every time I go home, I turn on KGO, Newstalk 810 out of San Francisco. They have a ton of great shows, the flagships being Gene Burns (a liberal-leaning libertarian), Ron Owens (claims to be a moderate, but he's a San Francisco moderate), and Gil Gross (another liberal). They produce the vast majority of their own content, with very little being syndicated.

My personal favorite show on there, though, is Len Tillem. He's a lawyer out of Sonoma County who gives free legal advice on his phone-in show. It is solid fucking gold if you like listening to people's problems, and advice given with a sense of humor; it's sort of a legal Car Talk.

I know you can pick up KGO through northern Oregon/southern Washington at night, and I'm not sure how far south or east it goes, so all of you within theoretical range should tune in.

Oh, and how could I forget about Karel! He's this flamboyantly gay, super-liberal weekend host on the show, and is just the fucking best. He is really not afraid to call the right out on their bullshit, and does so very regularly, in a righteous, rage-filled way. It's like if I turned gay, and someone gave me a talk radio show.

My personal favorite show on there, though, is Len Tillem. He's a lawyer out of Sonoma County who gives free legal advice on his phone-in show. It is solid fucking gold if you like listening to people's problems, and advice given with a sense of humor; it's sort of a legal Car Talk.

I've heard of that guy before actually, that's a great kind of show to run.

Michael Savage I had to hear one time when I was on the road with my folks. He was talking about a company that makes suits, and it's a company that made the official Nazi party uniforms, and he was raging about the company being Nazis themselves because they did business with the Nazis. It was... really weird to hear. I don't like the guy at all.

Michael Savage I had to hear one time when I was on the road with my folks. He was talking about a company that makes suits, and it's a company that made the official Nazi party uniforms, and he was raging about the company being Nazis themselves because they did business with the Nazis. It was... really weird to hear. I don't like the guy at all.

Michael Savage I had to hear one time when I was on the road with my folks. He was talking about a company that makes suits, and it's a company that made the official Nazi party uniforms, and he was raging about the company being Nazis themselves because they did business with the Nazis. It was... really weird to hear. I don't like the guy at all.

Oh to be sure, he's a complete chucklefuck.

I once heard him railing against some dude for saying "X", cuts to a clip of the guy quite plainly saying "not X," then back to Savage saying "See? He even admits it! Rabble rabble"

Guy does not give a fuck, he just wants to yell. He's the cocaine of rage-based stimulants.

I hate John Boy & Billy, and conservative talk radio is the only other thing we really have (I'm in the same craphole as Henroid). I love NPR, and we technically get a rebroadcast out of Dallas, but the reception is pretty awful. I'm on the south end of town and pretty much don't get it at all.

The Dallas NPR has (or had) a weekly program that was basically listeners calling in with whatever questions they wanted to ask and other listeners calling in the answers (if the host did not know). I've only caught it a couple of times but it was fun.

I would definitely get satellite radio if I would use it more than 15 minutes at a time.

Michael Savage I had to hear one time when I was on the road with my folks. He was talking about a company that makes suits, and it's a company that made the official Nazi party uniforms, and he was raging about the company being Nazis themselves because they did business with the Nazis. It was... really weird to hear. I don't like the guy at all.

Oh to be sure, he's a complete chucklefuck.

I once heard him railing against some dude for saying "X", cuts to a clip of the guy quite plainly saying "not X," then back to Savage saying "See? He even admits it! Rabble rabble"

Guy does not give a fuck, he just wants to yell. He's the cocaine of rage-based stimulants.

Well he'll do that and then in the next breath switches to a story about sailing out on the pacific or something. Its fascinating, and why I think his rage based antics are just show.

I hate John Boy & Billy, and conservative talk radio is the only other thing we really have (I'm in the same craphole as Henroid). I love NPR, and we technically get a rebroadcast out of Dallas, but the reception is pretty awful. I'm on the south end of town and pretty much don't get it at all.

The Dallas NPR has (or had) a weekly program that was basically listeners calling in with whatever questions they wanted to ask and other listeners calling in the answers (if the host did not know). I've only caught it a couple of times but it was fun.

I would definitely get satellite radio if I would use it more than 15 minutes at a time.

Haha, what about John Boy & Billy do you not like? I mean, aside from when they talk about sports / politics? Some of their skits are funny. Not mind-blowingly funny, but amusing.

Also, satellite radio you can listen to through the net, either on your PC through your web browser or through your mobile devices (they have apps now).

JB&B does have the rare funny skit, but not enough to put up with the rest. Especially since they tend to remind me I'm in East Texas. I rarely listen to the radio at all here anymore and just stick to CDs, and Pandora when I'm not in my car.

My CD player is showing early signs of its death, though. I'll probably get an FM transmitter for my phone if it dies and may change my habits.

The only semi-good station here is 96.1 or whatever, the rock station. It was better a couple years ago where they mostly played 70's, 80's and early 90's stuff, but now that switched around to mostly playing newer stuff. Music sucks these days, Jesus Christ. But anyway, that's the station JB&B plays on.

Yeah, 96.1 went downhill quick when they started playing modern stuff. The difference is very noticeable when I make a drive down to Houston and found at least 4 stations I thought were good enough to save on my radio, despite only going there for a few days every 4-5 months.

When I had a longer commute I would have fun seeing how long I could listen to conservative radio (typically Beck and Savage) until I had to either turn it off or drive my car into the nearest large object.

John Boy and Billy got their start at the local classic rock station, so I listened to a lot of them back when they drove me to school, in elementary school. Their skits aren't actually bad. Or at least they seemed pretty good when I heard them.

Now, I listen to the local NPR station. Depending on when my classes are that day, I get to listen to Talk of the Nation, the Diane Rheim Show, Morning Edition, or the local show, Charlotte Talks.

For more weird conservative talk radio I do sometimes enjoy listening to the most misogynistic female ever - Dr. Laura. It's really kind of sickly amusing to hear a women spout traditionalist gender role stuff to other women and men. I do enjoy listening to her shame some of these jackass dudes, but she's mostly a pure evil paternalist, that hates on LGBT's, and therefore deserves nothing but loathing. Hang on ... I see she moved to Sirius (which I don't have) because she was spouting racial epithets and her syndication was falling apart around her ears over it. Turns out she's even more horribly evil than I thought, which explains why I haven't heard her show on my rural business trips in the last few months.

Also, there is Coast-To-Coast which may be the greatest show ever about the paranormal

Also, there is Coast-To-Coast which may be the greatest show ever about the paranormal

It's mostly just interviews with B-list celebrities. The host's name is Space Ghost, but it isn't actually about the paranormal. It's just one of those radio tricks, like how Wolfman Jack's show wasn't actually about lycanthropy.

Every time I go home, I turn on KGO, Newstalk 810 out of San Francisco. They have a ton of great shows, the flagships being Gene Burns (a liberal-leaning libertarian), Ron Owens (claims to be a moderate, but he's a San Francisco moderate), and Gil Gross (another liberal). They produce the vast majority of their own content, with very little being syndicated.

My personal favorite show on there, though, is Len Tillem. He's a lawyer out of Sonoma County who gives free legal advice on his phone-in show. It is solid fucking gold if you like listening to people's problems, and advice given with a sense of humor; it's sort of a legal Car Talk.

I know you can pick up KGO through northern Oregon/southern Washington at night, and I'm not sure how far south or east it goes, so all of you within theoretical range should tune in.

KGO hasn't been the same for me since Pete Wilson died, he was by far my favorite radio guy. Len Tillem does have a fantastic show.

I also like Armstrong and Getty out of Sacramento. One is a libertarian style conservative, the other is a regular conservative. Neither of them are of the crazy variety and tend to put on a good discussion.

Also, there is Coast-To-Coast which may be the greatest show ever about the paranormal

It's mostly just interviews with B-list celebrities. The host's name is Space Ghost, but it isn't actually about the paranormal. It's just one of those radio tricks, like how Wolfman Jack's show wasn't actually about lycanthropy.

No silly, this has nothing to do with the excellent cartoon.

It's actually a hilarious talk radio show with host Geroge Noory on the AM band called Coast to Coast AM (I misstated the name on my original post). I fucking love the call-ins to the show. Sometimes they'll have psychics or paranormal researchers as guests and the questions they field are amazingly awesomely hilarious.

Also, there is Coast-To-Coast which may be the greatest show ever about the paranormal

It's mostly just interviews with B-list celebrities. The host's name is Space Ghost, but it isn't actually about the paranormal. It's just one of those radio tricks, like how Wolfman Jack's show wasn't actually about lycanthropy.

I think you're confusing the radio show with the Adult Swim show, unless you're joking or I'm that far out of the loop. The last time I listened to Coast to Coast it was hosted by Art Bell though, so it's been awhile. I always thought it was an interesting show and I loved listening to the call-ins, but it always played too late for me to listen to the entire show.

Since Air America died we have one or two talk radio stations around here (that I know of). I think we have NPR (I never listen to it and have never bothered searching it out), and WNBF 1290. WNBF is unlistenable garbage. The morning consists of Tony Russell, the local "get off my lawn, incompetent government!" old fart. Then starting at noon we get the triple decker crapfest of Rush, Hannity, and Michael Savage. I think there are a couple other right-wing blowhards after Savage, then it's Coast to Coast AM. The weekend doesn't get any better with Laura Ingraham and Mike Gallagher (they're the only two I know of, I'm sure there are other equally terrible shows). If we had Glenn Beck it'd basically be an all-star right-wing RAAAGE RARGH!!! station. The only saving grace on that crapfest is the Binghamton Mets being aired instead of Savage, but I could care less about minor league baseball.

I honestly rarely, if ever, listen to the radio anymore. I never listen to it in the house, and on the rare occasion I do listen it's when I'm driving and I'll have an FM classic rock station on. Generally it's CDs or something off the iPod (Sync ftw). I only ever hear talk radio on the very rare occasion I'm riding around with my dad.

There's a lot of NPR listeners here. Not that it surprises me, but most of what I need to know from NPR ends up being reported by other sources. Namely, this forum. It's a sort of unofficial news outlet, it is! (the forum, not NPR)

I hate John Boy & Billy, and conservative talk radio is the only other thing we really have (I'm in the same craphole as Henroid). I love NPR, and we technically get a rebroadcast out of Dallas, but the reception is pretty awful. I'm on the south end of town and pretty much don't get it at all.

The Dallas NPR has (or had) a weekly program that was basically listeners calling in with whatever questions they wanted to ask and other listeners calling in the answers (if the host did not know). I've only caught it a couple of times but it was fun.

I would definitely get satellite radio if I would use it more than 15 minutes at a time.

I know someone in Texas who just uses his phone's data plan to listen to one of the dozen's of NPR affiliates that are online.

Xenogears of Bore on April 2011

3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576

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lonelyahavaIf I confuse you, I blame the infantsleep-deprived new mommyRegistered Userregular

I've tried to listen to stern, many years ago, but there's something about his voice which makes me just want to climb walls. it's not his jokes or the bizarre things or whatever, but his voice. I have the same strange reaction to Tom Hanks as well and as a result have never seen Toy Story because I end up just wanting to murder something. It's like my ears bleed.

back in the states I would listen to NPR pretty much exclusively. my area had 2 NPR stations though (soon to be 3!) one was classical music and the other was strict NPR. But the classical station switched over at like 5 or 6am to the BBC world service and that was great.

I haven't listened to any radio down here in kiwiland, since the boyfriend's car has a crappy japanese import radio that doesn't go any higher than 90.FM... and there's nothing to listen to there at all...

I've tried to listen to stern, many years ago, but there's something about his voice which makes me just want to climb walls. it's not his jokes or the bizarre things or whatever, but his voice. I have the same strange reaction to Tom Hanks as well and as a result have never seen Toy Story because I end up just wanting to murder something. It's like my ears bleed.

back in the states I would listen to NPR pretty much exclusively. my area had 2 NPR stations though (soon to be 3!) one was classical music and the other was strict NPR. But the classical station switched over at like 5 or 6am to the BBC world service and that was great.

I haven't listened to any radio down here in kiwiland, since the boyfriend's car has a crappy japanese import radio that doesn't go any higher than 90.FM... and there's nothing to listen to there at all...

nothing.

it's like a cone of silence.

Have you had any luck streaming NPR? My favorite station KCUR 89.3, and it does have free streaming of their entire programming, just like listening on the radio.

Rush Limbaugh can be mildly tolerable. He is a pretentious, bloviating douche in the truest sense, but at least he's a policy wonk and "conservative" only in the East Coast, Goldwater/Nixonian kind of way. Which is probably why he's fallen in favor due to fervent religious types like Hannity and Beck, as that seems to be the way the Right is pulling these days.

But then there's the freak show of people like Mark Levin and Michael Savage, guys with shows where they just scream and rant and rave and say awful things about people, and yet feel no dissonance in playing the victim and defenders of higher moral standing.

They're all ridiculously hilarious if you can get over the fact that they're not trying to be funny.

I find Mark Levin easier to listen to than Michael Savage. At least he picks a train of thought and sticks to it. He sounds like a mustache twirling cartoon villain, and its hard to believe he doesn't realize this... but at least he's consistent.

Savage is only bearable when he's talking about himself. Some of his random stories are ok. Other wise he's just veering all over the place and shouting about random crap, and it really isn't all that interesting.

Levin is literally insane! One of the funniest conservatives that I love to hate!

Rush is just dumb. He's pure demagoguery, and I hate to hear him use every fallacy in the book to make a point, but only because the people that believe everything he says don't understand what a fallacy is.

I listen to conservative talk radio, because "know thy enemy", and sometimes it is super funny. Mostly I just can't stand the hypocracy and obvious abuse of power for greed. They love to point out how great their ratings are on the air and that's just not very interesting. Most influential people feel no need to constantly point out how popular they are, but these guys revel in it, and it's a bit disgusting, frankly.

My house has the radio on from pretty much 6:30 am to about 5 pm or so. Almost everyday. During the week its AM 760 which is the progressive station. Mornings are David Sirota who use to be national but does a local non-syndicated show. He is really good though sometimes I rage at him since takes some nonsensical things blows them up as the end of the world. After David is Ed Schultz, I usually turn to NPR if Ed is discussing anything outside of Unions or some other similar area he is good with. At 1 the play Thom Hartman's show from the morning. I disagree with Thom on a few things but in general he is good on his national stuff. I actually get annoyed at a lot of the international stuff, but I am getting my masters in it so I have a special view. 4 pm is Mario Solis Marich who is another local guy. Does a lot of the Hispanic stuff and is also just entertaining as hell to listen to.

The weekends are just NPR. Morning Edition(Danial Shore passing was a tragedy), Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life and of course Prairie Home Companion. NPR is excellent and we have a really good local station. They also do a great local show called Colorado Matters. Have a lot of interviews with local politicians.

When driving I pretty much live on the alternative station or my cds. I listen to music then.

Here's the thing that I forgot to mention: I almost never listen to the radio except to catch up on the news with NPR, usually I just plug in the MP3 player, because radio in my area is complete shit outside of NPR. Also, I only listen to conservative talk radio when the other options are non-existent and my MP3 player is boring me or out of batteries.

Good talk radio is pretty much dead, although it lives on a bit on satellite and is starting to revive itself in podcast form. We used to have a fantastic talk radio station here in the DC area in WFJK, but they flipped to a boring sports radio format a year or two ago. Used to be home to all Don and Mike, Ron and Fez, Opie and Anthony, Big O and Dukes... and now they just have guys talking about the Redskins for 21 hours a day.

Luckily for me, a lot of my old favorites exist in podcast now. Podcasts I think are how this medium is going to exist going forward, although I do miss something about the intimacy of a local radio show.

What counts as a bullshit reason to not like Stern? Is finding him boring as fuck a bullshit reason?

The only thing I really listen to at this point is the Rick Emerson show. The guy started out as a typical radio jock, but slowly let his pedantic, neurotic nerdery take over. He's no longer on terrestrial radio, but is available online via podcast.

The Emerson Show is a daily two-hour show that's subscriber based, but Legion of News is a one-hour daily that's free.